Barbecue Buyer's Guide

Bye bye barbie. Here's what to look for when it's time to buy a new 'cue

By David Zimmer

They say that the first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem so, okay, I’ll say it: I have a thing for barbecues. Big or small, from simple propane portables to pit smokers the size of a steam locomotive, I love them all and covet those of my neighbours (not a sin by the way; I checked). Truth be told, I don’t want to reform, and every year a fat-flaring battle between id and superego takes place as I look longingly at yet another grill to round out my current collection of six barbecues – down by one after I had to retire an old stalwart last year. Some of my so-called friends, barbecue infidels all, accuse me of excess, obsessive mania, and general cupidity towards anything barbecue-related. I say: What’s wrong with that? Lots of people collect commemorative teaspoons from all the provincial capitalsand you don’t see them being pilloried. Secretly, the only way I get by with just six measly grills is by cooking occasionally for a cottage-country catering outfit. This lets me enjoy other people’s barbecues on a regular basis, from huge stainless-steel rental units piled with planked salmon and whole beef tenderloins to the tiniest cottage grill turned to the task of cranking out an intimate dinner for 12. I survive my obsession, barely, by using other people’s gear. Sometimes, I work with an ultra-expensive barbecue that performs miserably. On other occasions, a more modest grill will turn out to be a real champ.

I have learned a few things. One is that most cottagers have gas barbecues. The other is that people have trouble separating the steak from the sizzle when they’re shopping for a gas grill. With so many brand names and super-duper proprietary “cooking systems” to choose from, it’s often hard to get past the bafflegab to find the few qualities that are really important to the only thing that counts: the food you cook on your grill. To further compound things, gas barbecues today are becoming more complex and feature loaded. “A grill has become simultaneously a status symbol and a piece of patio sculpture,” says celebrated cookbook author, TV host, and barbecue samurai Steven Raichlen.  “I’m not saying those are bad things, it’s just sort of part of the equation.” It is possible to spend $9,000 on a gas barbecue and, if your budget permits, go right ahead. But no matter how much money you spend, especially in the middle ground where most cottagers dwell, buying a gas barbecue can be a crapshoot if you don’t know what core features are essential to successful grilling.

Fahrenheit or Celsius, it’s got to be hot

Chef Ted Reader, cookbook author, barbecue bon vivant, and host of the King of the Q television show, knows what he wants in a gas barbecue. “I want a grill that’s going to give me a lot of heat so when I sear a steak, I seal in the juices and caramelize those juices and fat to produce flavour,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I always have to cook on high heat but when I want to sear meat, I want a serious amount of heat coming through a grill.” Raichlen calls it “power,” the ability to get really hot for true grilling and searing. “Unfortunately, that’s not quite as simple as talking about how many BTUs a grill puts out because it’s really about how well the grill is designed.”

The ancients felt they could divine the future by examining animal entrails. Similarly, the only way to get a glimpse of your grilling future is to delve deep into the heart of a barbecue – to take it apart and get a look at its guts. Inside, you’ll find the cooking grates, then beneath them some form of heat diffuser. Beneath this diffuser lies the burner. The burner makes the heat, the diffuser absorbs the heat, spreads it around, and keeps fat, juices, and food acids from falling on the burner, and the cooking grates deliver the heat to the meat. A simple system, but one that can very often go wrong, depending on the design of all three components.

“The strength of every barbecue is the burner,” explains Joel Waisglass, owner of Sobie’s Barbecues & Appliance Service in Toronto. “It is probably the most important thing to look at when you’re purchasing a gas grill.” A good burner is defined as much by its shape and size as the specific materials used to make it. “With any grill you need at least two burners, ideally three or four, so you can do indirect grilling and have a finer control of the temperature,” says Raichlen. Searing food directly over high heat, then moving it off to the side over an unlit burner to cook using convection is a staple in the barbecue repertoire. Some manufacturers attain this ability using one large burner split down the middle for separate control, while others use a number of burners, sometimes tube-shaped, to split the grill into distinctly controlled zones of heat. Either system can work well, as long as the layout spreads a lot of heat evenly underneath the diffuser. Duff Dixon, the owner of Ontario Gas BBQ in Concord, Ont., says the only way consumers can learn about this is to look at a lot of barbecues. It will soon become obvious that a single, tiny, oval-shaped burner is not going to perform as well as an H-shape or a figure-eight burner. “The better the distribution of flame, the better the performance is going to be,” Dixon explains. “If it’s a cheap burner with a poor layout under the cooking surface, even a layman can see that flame pattern is not going to heat the surface effectively.”

The material used to make a burner will affect its performance and longevity. At the bottom end, you’ll find aluminized steel burners, which are prone to corrosion and heat fatigue and, according to Dixon, “if you get a year out of them you’re doing well.” He’s been selling gas barbecues for 21 years and has a low opinion of aluminized steel. “It’s something certain manufacturers used for a while, and I think they realized it was a big booboo after all the aggravation they caused their customers.” The moral? Avoid aluminized steel burners like the plague.

Other common burner choices include cast iron and stainless steel. Cast-iron burners are a rare animal these days, but owners of old-time grills with cast burners praise their longevity. According to Dixon, however, cast-iron burners might be fine for the furnace in your house but, in an outdoor environment where they are exposed to moisture, the tiny ports that define the flame soon deform from corrosion. “Cast-iron burners are heavy and they have tremendous sex appeal in a brochure, but even though some last a long time, their performance hasn’t been the same since year two,” he says. “The reason for that is the nature of the metal. Buy a new cast-iron burner and it starts rusting tonight.” If that testimony doesn’t swing you, also note that cast-iron barbecue burners are more expensive to replace and harder to find.

The most popular burner material is stainless steel, which can be formed into a multitude of shapes, and is best able to resist the high temperatures inside a gas grill and fend off the corrosion caused by moisture and food acids. But any metal, even stainless steel, is adversely affected when subjected to constant high temperatures. “It literally starts to change the metal,” explains Dixon, “and at some point even stainless steel is no longer stainless steel and it begins to rust. But it is the best material to use in the interim to resist the cancer that is eventually going to come.” He says the average stainless-steel burner with a five-year warranty will last four to five years, and a model with a 10-year warranty will last 8–12 years. “It’s not that the burners are any better,” he says of the longer-lasting models, “it’s how they end up being protected by the heat-distribution system.”

Once you've got it, spread it around

Ah, the heat-distribution system. What used to simply be a pile of lava rocks is now right at the core of what separates a good barbecue from a disappointment. According to our experts, rock-based systems are uncommon these days, even on bargain-basement units. Other systems employ either a series of inverted V-shaped bars or ceramic rods or a cast-iron plate to absorb and retain heat and direct that heat to the cooking surface. But that’s just part of the diffuser’s job. It should also vaporize fat drippings and juices, sending lovely smoke back up to the food, and direct excess drippings away from the burners to some sort of grease collector. Well-designed systems are those that best protect the burner from corrosive food acids. Raichlen recommends ones with an easy grease evacuation system. “It should sound self-evident, but there are some really expensive grills on the market that are very hard, virtually impossible, to clean,” he says. “Which would only lead me to assume they were designed by engineers and not by people who have ever cooked on a barbecue.”

What’s best? All the systems can do a fine job if they are laid out well and provide shelter for the burners from the shower of grease raining down from above. Generally, the better the barbecue, the heavier the bars or plates will be. Heavier bars or plates, found on well-designed grills, will last longer and do a better job of maintaining heat. Finally, Raichlen advises barbecue buyers that diffusers should be positioned at least 8–10 cm below the cooking grate for best performance. “There are a couple of high-end grills I’ve seen where those diffusers are placed as close as 11⁄2" [4 cm] from the cooking grate, and that gives you very unnatural cooking,” he says. “Things either tend to burn or stay raw.”

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Published in the June 2004 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

Copyright © 2004 by Cottage Life. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.